Harvard Dea Elverum

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Elverum, Harvard Dea Harvard Dea Elverum (just "Dea" or "Deabo" to his friends and family, and "Didda" to his grandkids) finally got fed up with his wheelchair and headed back out to the golf course once and for all on February 22, 2017And since in his prime Dea could drive the green on a 320 yard par four using a persimmon wood at sea level, even God will be curious to see exactly how far he can hit a modern driver at `that' elevation.
Born in Howard Lake on January 20, 1925, as a boy Dea was a regular at the town ball field; eventually becoming bat boy for the local squad. He studied the tricks of the team's junk-balling pitchers and by the time he got to St. Louis Park High School in 1939 he was an ace hurler with a knuckleball that would dip and dart a foot in any direction without rotating a millimeter. When he wasn't at a ballpark, Dea was caddying at either Brookview or Meadowbrook and teaching himself how to play the game that would become his lifelong passion. After a stint in the Army Air Force, he made his way to the University of Minnesota where he took the mound for a Gopher baseball team that included legends like Bud Grant.
To make ends meet as an undergrad Dea took a job in the stockroom at Honeywell where he met his match in fiery Scandinavian Joan Tjomsland, whom he'd go on to marry on January 25, 1947. Their first child, Jackie Jo, arrived the next year. After graduating in 1949, Dea briefly barnstormed the Midwest playing semi-pro baseball before hanging up his mitt and heading back to Honeywell where he'd spend his entire career. He dutifully leapt up the ranks from VP operations of the Residential division from '64-'70, to VP and GM of the Test Instruments division in Denver from '70-'72, to president of Honeywell Europe in Brussels from '72-'77, to group VP of the Components Group back in Minneapolis from '77-'83, and then to executive VP of Control Products from 1983 until his retirement in 1987 at the ripe old age of 62.
When he wasn't conquering his career or the golf course, Dea was doing his most fulfilling work: providing for the family he'd started while he was still in college. After Jackie came Dana, then Anne. Next it was grandsons Andrew, Cameron, Evan, Reid, and Adam, and more recently great-grandkids Willa, Tillie and Saylor.
While Dea always had a wink and a smile, one of his most amusing traits was the unmistakable way he vented his frustrations over sports. He was his grandsons' biggest fan, and loved going to their games, but when they'd do something hairbrained like swing at a ball in the dirt, a high-pitched, largely-unintelligible exclamation from Dea's direction was not uncommon. Likewise, his consternation with the perpetual ineptitude of his favorite team, the Minnesota Vikings, would sound during moments of particular futility with exclamations like, "These boneheads always do that!" or "How! Can! They! Do that?!" But Dea's real bastion of bombast was the golf course where he was the target of his vitriol. Shrieks of "Darnit, Dea!" or "I don't know why I even keep playing this game!" were as common a sound at the Minikahda Club during his membership tenure as birds chirping.
A month before his tee time on the great golf course in the sky, Dea celebrated his 92nd birthday and 70th wedding anniversary surrounded by family -- he'd hung around just long enough to share one last slice of cake and some vanilla ice cream with his great-grandkids. Dea is survived by wife Joan; siblings Richard, Kent, Kim, and Karen Gress; daughters Jackie West (David), Dana Wood (Dick Niglio), Anne Tynan (Sean); grandsons Andrew Wood (Vanessa), Cameron Wood (Kathryn), Evan Tynan, Reid Tynan, and Adam Tynan; and great-grandchildren Willamina Wood, Matilda Wood, and Saylor Woodall of whom aspire to lead even half the life Dea did.
A private burial service will be held for family on Thursday at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers the the family requests that memorials be made in Dea's name to the First Baptist Church of Naples, 3000 Orange Blossom Dr., Naples, Florida 34109.

Published on February 26, 2017